1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium suitable for color ink-jet recording, and particularly to a recording medium suitable for ink jet recording in full color applying a large amount of ink per unit area in high recording density of 300 dpi or more without causing a black stripe, with excellent characteristics in ink absorption, recording image sharpness and image resolution.
2. Related Background Art
Ink jet recording is attracting a great deal of attention as a recording method capable of high speed printing and multicolor printing without generating noises.
Various recording media are disclosed for the ink jet recording.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 55-144172 (1980) describes a sheet comprising a porous ink absorbing layer provided on a substrate.
With such sheets, ink absorbency has been improved, but disadvantages still remain such that sharp and glossy images with high optical density cannot be obtained because of the porous nature of the ink absorbing layer.
Conventional recording media are constructed such that largest amount of the recording agent applied remains on the surface of the ink absorbing layer for observing the recorded image from the recorded side, resulting in disadvantages in durability or storability such as water resistance, abrasion resistance, etc.
To solve such problems, Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 58-136480 (1983) discloses a recording medium comprising at least one layer of an ink receiving layer mainly composed of a pigment provided on a light-transmissive supporter for observing the image from the side of the supporter.
An image formed on such a recording medium has satisfactory characteristics in water-resistance, gloss, etc. at the image observing face (the supporter side), but has a disadvantage of low optical density of the image observed from the supporter side because of the hiding of the dye of the applied ink by the pigment particles, thus no high-quality of the image being given.
Further, when a color image is recorded on such a recording medium, the ink having reached to the interface of the supporter stays there and spreads along the supporter interface, which causes a disadvantage of low dissolution of the image.
To offset such disadvantages, U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,313 discloses a recording medium comprising a porous ink transporting layer containing a surfactant and a non-porous ink retaining layer, both layers being provided on a supporter.
The use of the above-mentioned recording media offsets the disadvantages, and gives a high optical density of the image observed from the supporter side, and a high quality of the image.
Even with such a recording media, however, a problem is still involved in that a black stripe may be formed, lowering the image quality when the recording is conducted with a larger amount of ink per unit area with a high density of 300 dpi or more.